Mr. Justice

by Scott Douglas Gerber

  Oates would never forget that day. He had driven from Washington to Charlottesville in order to get a feel for McDonald’s movements … for a typical day in the life of one of America’s most celebrated law professors. Oates actually enjoyed some of his trip. Most of the one-hundred-mile drive between the nation’s capital and the University of Virginia wended through rolling hills and pastoral farmlands at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the headwaters of the Rivanna River. Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s magnificent home, was visible on the horizon about ten miles outside of town. Charlottesville, a city of approximately forty thousand people, looked like a postcard of a college town. The university itself—locals, in fact, referred to UVA as “the university”—was one of the most scenic campuses in the nation. The Lawn, a/k/a “Mr. Jefferson’s Academical Village,” was the heart of the university. The Rotunda, a scale replica of the Roman Pantheon, sat at the top of the Lawn, and rows of student rooms and professors’ residences proceeded down it. The Lawn was a beautiful sight on a good day. During a 1993 visit to the university, Mikhail Gorbachev, the former president of the Soviet Union, had said, “You people live in paradise.”

  The law school was located about a mile from the Lawn, in a part of the campus known as the North Grounds. And it was on the North Grounds where Jeffrey Oates found Jenny and Megan McDonald waiting for the man that Oates had been told to kill.

  Peter McDonald’s wife and daughter looked like they had just finished posing for a Hallmark card. Jenny, McDonald’s wife, was wearing an emerald green Laura Ashley dress spotted with yellow daises. It was a striking choice for a woman of her porcelain complexion and chestnut hair color. Megan, the little girl, had on an identical outfit. She was carrying a heart-shaped box of chocolates in her tiny hand.

  Valentine’s Day! Oates said to himself after taking in the scene. He had forgotten all about it. Why wouldn’t he? He had no one to share it with. He had spent his entire adult life serving Senator Alexandra Burton, one of the most powerful women in the country and, someday, perhaps the first female president of the United States. Oates didn’t know why the senator wanted him to kill Professor McDonald, but it wasn’t his job to ask why. It was his job to do it.

  CHAPTER 5

  Peter McDonald exited the law school’s back entrance and spotted his wife and daughter standing in the faculty parking lot next to the family’s new Volvo station wagon. A huge smile spread across his handsome face. He waved hello to his wife and then called out to his daughter. “Hiya, June Bug,” he said. Megan had been a June baby. “Are you ready for lunch?”

  “Yeth!” Megan bubbled. The recent loss of her two front teeth had turned her s’s into th’s. It had made her even more adorable than she already was. “Pitha!”

  Jenny McDonald said, “I thought we decided to take Daddy someplace special for Valentine’s Day, sweetheart.” She stroked her daughter’s chestnut hair.

  “Pitha ith thpethal, Mommy.” Megan decided that now would be a good time to start spinning like a top. “Pitha! Pitha! Pitha!”

  Peter McDonald said, still smiling, “Pizza it is, June Bug.”

  Jenny said, “But I’ve got reservations at the C&O, Peter. I wanted today to be special. You’ve been so busy since the nomination was announced.”

  The C&O was the most expensive restaurant in Charlottesville. It specialized in French cuisine. Julia Child had called it the finest French restaurant south of the Mason-Dixon line in her classic book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

  McDonald took his wife by the hand. He looked directly into her sparkling green eyes. “Any day with you and Megan is special, hon. It doesn’t matter where we eat.”

  Jenny’s eyes misted. “‘Pitha,’ here we come.” She kissed her husband on the cheek and hugged him like there was no tomorrow.

  “Pitha! Pitha! Pitha!” Megan sang as the happy family headed for the car.

  The McDonalds meandered down Route 250 on their way to Crozet Pizza, one of the hidden gems of the area. UVA students in the know understood that a trip to Crozet for a hand-tossed pie was as sacred as a naked sprint across the Lawn.

  Fortunately for Jeffrey Oates, Route 250 was a back road and wasn’t heavily trafficked. He followed closely behind the McDonalds’ Volvo, but not so close as to be conspicuous. He had borrowed a colleague’s car with Virginia license plates for the same reason. It was a late-model Mustang, and unlike his ten-year-old Taurus, it had speed to burn. That was crucial because Oates would need to make a quick getaway.

  Oates followed the McDonalds for the better part of ten miles. Where the heck were they going? he said to himself more than once. He wasn’t from Charlottesville, but he knew that a college town of its size and significance must have a number of quality restaurants.

  Finally, the Volvo turned into a gravel parking lot about a quarter of a mile west of a small wooden sign that read CROZET at the top and INCORPORATED 1791 at the bottom. In a way, Oates thought, it was good that the McDonalds had decided to celebrate Valentine’s Day outside of town. There would be fewer witnesses this way. He knew it took only one witness, though. One person who could identify him. He needed to be careful.

  Jenny McDonald was the first to exit the car. She placed her purse on the roof, tucked her hair behind her ears, and opened the back door. She leaned over and unbuckled the child safety seat that held her slumbering daughter. Megan never stayed awake for more than five minutes in the car. Jenny and Peter had discovered that when Megan was a baby and wouldn’t sleep through the night. One evening, at about half past eleven, Peter decided to drive his crying daughter around the block. Five minutes later, she was sleeping as soundly as a senior citizen after a Wheel of Fortune marathon on the Game Show Network.

  “Come on, Professor,” Oates muttered. He bit his lip. He had picked the wrong time to try to quit smoking. “Get out of the car. Get out of the goddamn car.”

  Oates felt more than a little guilty about the prospect of shooting McDonald in front of his wife and daughter, but he had no choice. Senator Burton had insisted that the deed be done ASAP. And what the senator wanted, the senator got. Everyone on the senator’s staff knew that. Jeffrey Oates certainly did.

  McDonald finally exited the car. He locked the doors with the press of a button on his key chain and then did a quick sprint to where his wife and sleeping daughter were waiting. He eased his daughter from his wife’s tired arms, positioned her comfortably on his shoulder, and took his wife by the hand. He still got tingles when Jenny caressed his hand with the back of her thumb, and he still felt all warm inside when Megan wrapped her tiny arms around his neck.

  No, Peter McDonald said to himself, life doesn’t get any better than this. Then …

  A shot! McDonald heard a shot!

  He felt his wife’s grip loosen from his own. He watched her knees buckle as she crumbled to the sidewalk like one of Megan’s rag dolls.

  “Jenny!” he cried out. “Jenny!”

  Then …

  A second shot!

  He heard a sharp squeal.

  Megan! The second shot had hit Megan!

  “No!” he cried out. “Please God, no!” McDonald dropped to the sidewalk. Megan lay limply across her mother’s chest. Jenny had a hole in the side of her head the size of a quarter. Both McDonald’s wife and daughter were soaked in blood, and both had their eyes open. “No!” he said again.

  It didn’t take long for people to start pouring out of the pizzeria to find out what the commotion was about.

  “Oh my God!” a middle-aged woman said. She had a slice of pepperoni in her pudgy hand.

  “Call an ambulance!” McDonald said. “Please! Someone call an ambulance!”

  A young man in a starched polo shirt and jeans—a UVA student, most likely—reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. He dialed 911 and said, “A lady and her daughter have been shot! They need an ambulance!” He paused briefly, and then in obvious response to an obvious question, said, “Crozet Pizza on Route 250.”<
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  Another young man—he, too, wearing a starched polo shirt and jeans, and he, too, most likely a UVA student—pointed across the road and said, “Look! I bet the shots came from that car!”

  But before anyone could do anything about it, Jeffrey Oates hammered down on the Mustang’s accelerator and disappeared into the horizon. More importantly, there was no need for an ambulance. Jenny and Megan McDonald were dead.

  CHAPTER 6

  “This hearing will please come to order,” Senator Alexandra Burton said with a loud rap of her gavel.

  All nineteen members of the Judiciary Committee were in their seats. Usually, only two or three members were present at the same time. But, usually, the committee was being asked to assess the qualifications of a nominee for a federal district court judgeship or for a seat on the U.S. court of appeals. Under the doctrine of senatorial courtesy, the senator from the state in which the judicial vacancy existed made the appointment. The Constitution specified otherwise—the president was to “nominate” and the Senate was to provide “advice and consent”—but the Senate rarely confirmed a presidential appointment if the nominee’s own senators disapproved. As a result, the practice had developed in such a way that now the home state senator told the president who should fill the seat. There was one notable exception to this longstanding custom: when the vacancy was on the Supreme Court of the United States, the nation’s highest court.

  “Good morning, Professor,” Burton said.

  “Good morning, Senator,” McDonald said.

  “Let me assure you, Professor, that I intend to bend over backwards to make sure you get a fair hearing before this committee.” Burton glanced toward the press gallery. “I know that our colleagues in the Fourth Estate probably don’t believe me, but it’s true.”

  The members of the press didn’t “probably” not believe Burton—they definitely didn’t. A slew of stories in the morning’s newspapers had reminded readers that the senator’s daughter and son-in-law had filed a request for an expedited appeal to the Supreme Court asking that the Court reverse its 2003 decision permitting colleges and universities to consider the race of an applicant when deciding whom to admit and that, if confirmed, Peter McDonald would be the swing vote in the case. The talking heads who had been hired by the television networks to provide play-by-play for the confirmation hearing—apparently, there wasn’t much difference anymore between TV coverage of a confirmation hearing for a high-level government post and a football game between division rivals—had opened their morning broadcasts by expressing the same sentiment.

  “Thank you, Senator,” McDonald said, struggling to keep his eyes from rolling. He didn’t believe that Burton would be impartial, either.

  “Would you like to make an opening statement before we begin the morning’s questioning?”

  “Yes, Senator. Thank you.” McDonald swiveled in his seat and retrieved a thin manila folder from Kelsi Shelton’s quivering hand.

  Kelsi Shelton was a third-year law student at the University of Virginia. She was Peter McDonald’s research assistant. Working for McDonald was a coveted assignment for any UVA law student: he was brilliant, productive, and less pretentious than any other member of the faculty. Kelsi had applied to work for him because the principal focus of his scholarship over the past several years had been capital punishment, and she hoped to become a public defender when she graduated in May. Those plans might need to be placed on hold for a year. McDonald had told Kelsi that if he was confirmed by the Senate for a seat on the Supreme Court, he wanted her to clerk for him.

  Some of Kelsi’s classmates—the jealous ones, mostly—were saying that McDonald wanted Kelsi to continue to work for him because she was beautiful and he was now single. Everyone knew how devoted McDonald had been to his wife, but his wife was dead. McDonald was human, the argument went, and even he couldn’t avoid noticing how attractive Kelsi was. She was tall with blonde hair that shined like sunflowers on a summer day, and she possessed a smile that put everyone around her at ease. She tended to favor sweatshirts and jeans around the corridors of the law school, but even a loose fitting sweatshirt couldn’t conceal the eye-popping figure that lay beneath.

  McDonald, plainly aware that Kelsi was more than mildly overwhelmed by the spectacle being played out before her, flashed his research assistant a reassuring smile.

  Kelsi returned his smile, swept her hair from her face, and settled back into the seat behind the large walnut table at which McDonald sat. Kelsi, in short, was sitting where Jenny McDonald was supposed to be.

  “Professor?” Burton said. It was remarkable how patient the senator was being.

  “Sorry, Senator. My assistant had my notes.”

  The myriad of TV cameras crammed into the hearing room all panned to Kelsi. Her face turned the color of the most prominent third of the American flag towering over the dais occupied by the members of the Judiciary Committee: r-e-d.

  “Professor McDonald’s assistant certainly is beautiful,” a blithering head of hair spray could be heard reporting live for FOX News. Like it mattered to Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution of the United States—the provision that spoke to the Senate’s “advice and consent” power over presidential nominees to the federal bench—what Peter McDonald’s assistant looked like.

  It did matter, though. In politics, as in life, it always mattered whether someone was attractive.

  Kelsi Shelton would soon be learning that lesson for herself.

  CHAPTER 7

  Billy Joe Collier had arrived at The Rebel Bar and Grill an hour earlier than Earl Smith had told him to. But Collier was stoked for a fight, and he always liked to have a nice buzz going before he got down and dirty. He had already drunk three beers. The number would have been greater—Collier was known to inhale a six-pack an hour on a good night—but he was distracted by the couple at the bar.

  Collier didn’t know the couple. That didn’t matter. He knew he didn’t like them. He hated them, in fact. Why? Because the woman was white and the man was black.

  Earl Smith entered the bar. He removed his baseball cap and raked his hands through his hair. He plopped his cap back on his head. He scanned the room. He spotted Billy Joe Collier sitting in a booth near the back of the bar with a table full of empty beer bottles to keep him company.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Smith said to his top lieutenant. “How long have you been here?”

  Collier checked his watch, a dollar store special. “About two hours.” He chugged another beer. “Where the fuck have you been?”

  The Ku Klux Klan wasn’t the military or the Mafia—although it patterned itself a bit after both—so Collier could get away with being disrespectful to his higher-up.

  Smith fidgeted again with his baseball cap. He said, “Lost track of time is all.” That wasn’t true. But he couldn’t afford to tell Collier the real reason he was late: he had been with Cat Wilson.

  “Have a seat, boss.”

  Smith sat. He removed his cap and placed it on the table. The cap had TAYLOR TIRES embossed across the front. He worked at the tire plant as a line foreman. Collier was part of his crew there, too.

  Collier’s attention was again drawn to the couple at the bar. The man had placed his hand on the woman’s thigh. “Stick to your own kind, nigger!” Collier shouted.

  Both the couple and Smith were startled by Collier’s outburst. The remainder of the bar’s patrons seemed used to it.

  The couple paid their tab and quickly left the bar.

  Smith thanked his lucky stars that he hadn’t told Collier about Cat. Frankly, he knew he shouldn’t have been surprised by Collier’s outburst about the couple at the bar. Nothing made a klansman angrier than an interracial romance.

  “Fuckin’ cunt,” Collier spat. He drained another beer. “A piece of pussy that fine shouldn’t be wasting herself on no nigger.” He smiled. “She should give me a taste of that sweet thang. God knows I could use me a taste.”

  Smith played along. �
��You and me both, Billy Joe. You and me both.” He signaled for the waitress. “Now let’s talk about McDonald.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Peter McDonald said, “I realize that custom dictates that I begin by introducing my family. But, as the committee knows, my wife and daughter were murdered six months ago.”

  Whispers of sadness and sympathy filled the committee room. Everyone already knew about the tragic deaths of McDonald’s wife and daughter, but hearing him mention it for the first time publicly was one of the most gut-wrenching moments in the history of the Supreme Court appointment process.

  McDonald added, “I would like to take this opportunity to thank the chair for the kindness she showed when she was first apprised of that awful news. I especially appreciate her generous offer to postpone this hearing until I felt ready to proceed.”

  Senator Burton said, “You’re welcome.”

  Actually, the senator had initially inquired about whether the professor might wish to reconsider his acceptance of the president’s nomination to the Court. “Everyone would understand if you changed your mind,” Burton had said at the time, her voice dripping with southern charm. “Losing your wife and daughter is a lot to bear. I know. I still haven’t recovered from losing my grandson two years ago.”

  Unfortunately for Burton, McDonald had said that he owed it to the president—and to the country—to honor his commitment and press forward with the confirmation process.

  McDonald took a sip of water. “I’d also like to thank the committee for the serious attention it has afforded to my nomination. I’m a law professor, and we law professors tend to put pen to paper quite a lot. I thank each and every member for the time you’ve invested in reading my books and articles.”